Poetry Friday on Sunday

I didn’t get to it on Friday because I was off to a church weekend away, so here is a belated poetry Friday. I really like Don Carson’s biblical poetry because it just makes the familiar new again, and impresses it upon me afresh. So here are two sonnets based on Ephesians 3:14-21, which is one of my favourite prayers in Scripture:

Four

Much loved by God himself – transcendent thought!

And what a love: not cautious, sensible,

A metered mite – mere word, a syllable,

A “love” – cheap, plastic coinage, sold and bought

At varied prices, all inflated, sought

In counterfeit; but inexpressible

In worth, and tested in the crucible

Of crucifixion (hatred come to nought!).

I trace this love’s strong roots and find at last

Not objects loved, but God’s own wellsprings free –

An ocean without bottom, shoreless, vast,

As timeless, endless as eternity.

Receive my stilled devotion, O my God;

As object of such love, I’m overawed.

D.A. Carson, Ephesians 3:14-21 and 1 John 4:10

Thirty-eight

To grasp how wide and long and high and deep

This love of Christ, experience it when

Mere knowledge burst its categories, then

Escape the fragile frame of language, reap

The richest crop salvation brings, and heap

Up memories of a sea of love, again

And yet again cascading o’er us – men

Can know no other bliss so rich and deep.

Lord God, in love you have established us,

And rooted us in soil no less fine:

Not single plants exposed to every gust

Of wind, but all the saints drink love sublime.

Make me to know – a creature hewn from sod –

The measure of all fullness found in God.

Ephesians 3:17b-19